The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for monitoring and management of roaming cellular telephony users, and, more particularly, but not exclusively to a method or apparatus that allows for such monitoring and management in real time.
Cellular telephone users generally have accounts with given networks provided by given network providers. The given networks do not have unlimited geographical coverage but are limited to specific counties or regions. Cellular telephones, being mobile, are not however limited to specific countries or regions as are the networks they belong to, and thus a system called roaming was developed to allow cellular telephones outside of the geographic region of their own, or home, network to connect to another compatible network. In the roaming system the mobile telephone connects to the available network as a roaming device.
The available network, hereinafter the roaming network logs the roaming device in if it is compatible but also makes a connection to the roaming device's home network to ensure that the device has the necessary authorization for international use and for call control and possibly other real time support. Typically the connection that is made to the home network comprises signaling, and is sent via a specific signaling connection. The SS7 signaling standard is typically used for such international signal between networks. connections for various purposes. In U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003/072425 a probe is used to monitor data on the SS7 International signaling lines. Probes which simply copy and store all passing data are well known, but the probe of the instant application goes a step further in that it associates different signals that belong to the same call and is able to set up a call detail report (CDR) for any individual call. The call detail reports may then be sent to the respective home network for statistical analysis etc.
It is noted that international telephony is a relatively profitable part of the service of a telephony provider and it is in the interest of the telephone companies to encourage such use. There currently exist systems which detect initial connections made by roaming devices to roaming networks and send to the user welcome messages in appropriate languages encouraging the user to take advantage of the roaming facilities. However, there is not currently any system that monitors anything beyond the initial connection of an individual roaming user, or of individual calls for the purpose of increase roaming usage.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a roaming monitoring and management system devoid of the above limitations.